Hocus Pocus

I'll confess Halloween is among my least favorite holidays (down there with President's Day-- cuz what have they done for us, anyway?-- and Labor Day, and Children's Day, that thankfully we don't celebrate here), but when we were BOO-attacked by some neighbors, it was time to pay it forward with a batch of spooky goodies (finally using up those nasty white chocolate chips!).

I don't love to bake, and I really don't love to bake when the kids are "helping" me, so I was more than happy when they waxed uninterested with the cookies business and left me to stamp pumpkin dough in peace.

I should add that delivering the goodies was still a hoot. My heart really was pounding with the threat of being identified as we doorbell ditched, and with good reason, because Erik runs only slightly faster than he walks.

Here's an adorable shot of Mark and Noe's baby, Makakoa, in the preliminary stages of our costume designing. Unfortunately, I neglected to capture the sort-of important "after" frame, but I'll try to get that from her later because their family costumes put all y'alls to shame (mostly referring to our family's costumes).

Wednesday before Halloween we were supposed to trick-or-treat with Thunderkids to departments at Kyle's school. That turned out to be the worst day I've had in a looooong while, but I still took the kids to the event, hoping it'd satisfy their candy greed and get me out of further trick-or-treating over the weekend. Instead, we walked away from that event with a meager handful of candies that Ellie's friend donated and tears bursting from Ellie's and my eyes. Awful.

Ellie reassured me that I am still a good mom and expressed her confidence that the four other Halloween excursions remaining would make up for our failure in that incident.

She was right. The Joy School Halloween party was our typical overdose of cute, messy and fun.





Friday night's party with Mark's family was so relaxing and enjoyable that I only took a picture of the pumpkin roll appetizer I brought.

Saturday the fun continued with a T-kids subsidized trip to the farm

where Charlie first uttered the word "piggy" (and many times since, during his inaugural viewing of Babe),


nearly lost a few fingers to an ornery ostrich (just your average Arizona farm animal???),

made cornmeal,

pledged to eat more fresh produce,

burned whatever calories weren't evaporated by the scorching October sun,


launched a tomato into oblivion,

and, most importantly, went home happy.

Saturday night we showed up for our ward's Trunk-or-Treat sugar fest, and after feeling silly showing up costume-less to Mark and Noe's party the night previous, at the very last minute we dusted off our 80's attire for the party. (YES I rocked those leggings at a church function.) I don't even remember what the kids wore, because they selected different costume pieces for each event we attended. Oh wait, I remember Erik was an alligator because he peed on that costume and into the plastic jack-o-lantern decorating our trunk. Still, it was all around family fun. I feel especially proud and devious that after the kids and I made the rounds and returned to our car, we'd run out of candy to pass out so I distributed my kids' fresh loot to trunk-or-treaters. We still went home with a couple handfuls of junk, which is fine, because it's kept up high and the kids forget to ask about it very often, or perhaps they just know their mother.

Halloween was a good time, though a little understated. There were lots and lots of crafts and recipes I never made time for, but I suppose I'm the only one who knows or cares about that pish posh.

Thanksgiving will be understated this year, as well, seeing that we have no local family or friends-close-enough-to-call-family to share it with. I refuse to slave solo over an entire Thanksgiving dinner to feed the same crew I feed every day and night. So, we'll see if something develops. In the meantime, our thankey turkey went up tonight, and just in case you were wondering, Ellie is thankful for "buvrs," Charlie for Mommy, and Erik for evewyfing. And I'm just kind of thankful that it's my job to love these little lovables.